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“We’re Sorry”: Such simple customer service

Today Danielle and I picked up some new furniture from a local retailer, Tepperman’s. We pulled up to the pickup area, waited a few minutes, and the first piece came out. After loading it on the trailer, Danielle noticed, and let me know, that it was definitely not the right color. We ordered black, it was brown. I ran into the pickup office and let them know of the mistake before they brought out any more. It turns out that the part number on this type of chair was wrong and they had not noticed before. They said that they’ll go pull down the right one and it’ll be a few minutes.

About 20 minutes later they finally came out with our stuff. I wasn’t too annoyed, since it was only 20 minutes and I can understand how problems happen. The first guy that brought out our first piece of furniture apologized as soon as he got to my car, saying that they had to spray a protectant on, and that’s what took so long. A second guy, bringing our other pieces again apologized.

On my second trip back (the trailer only holds so much), I waited in line at the pickup for parking to open for a few minutes and didn’t even have a spot before they saw me there, recognized the car, and had my final piece out to me. This was followed by the manager who sincerely apologized, saying that it shouldn’t have happened, that this issue let them fix others that they realized had been wrong, and that he was sorry that I wasted time on a Sunday to wait for them to fix this.

I have to say this was amazing customer service. I had told all the guys before that it wasn’t a problem, since I understand mistakes happen, so I wasn’t angry at all. But this manager taking the time to address the issue and see me directly shows that they are taking customer service seriously. I would have been happy with just the worker’s saying sorry (even though it really wasn’t their fault, just a system screw up), but that extra step is great.